Linda Haney is the democratic nominee for Knox County Mayor. She is pictured outside the Knox County Democratic Party headquarters on Friday, May 18, 2018.(Photo: Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel )Buy Photo

But it’s how former Knox County Democratic Party Chairman Cameron Brooks described the Knox County mayoral race this fall.

Brooks isn’t wrong, both in the sheer size difference between the GOP nominee, Glenn Jacobs, and his Democratic opponent, Linda Haney, and in the odds stacked against Haney’s campaign in a county that President Donald Trump carried by 24 points.

Yes, the comparison is tiring. But Haney is preparing. She’s selecting her stones, slingshot in hand, and she's taking aim at the issues and her opponent's libertarian views.

Inside the party headquarters in the Old City last week, Haney was resolute. “We’re in it to win it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally in this to win it.”

Voter turnout is key

Haney soundly defeated her challenger, Rhonda "Mousie" Gallman in the county primary May 1.

Roughly 40,000 voters, or only 20 percent of Knox County’s registered voters, participated, however, a “travesty” in Haney’s book. Also, only 7,662 Democratic ballots were cast for mayor.

For her, and by extension, the party’s hopes up and down the ballot in Knox County, Democratic turnout has to be high for there to be victory. GOTV, Get-Out-The-Vote, she said.

“It’s the only way we can win. If we get the vote out we can win,” she said.

In the ho-hum county general, state and federal primary election in August 2014, only 60,000 voters participated. Four years before that, 63,000 voters came out.

But this year’s race is different and Democrats are banking on a higher-than-usual turnout. Locally, they have a candidate in every state race in the House, one in the Senate and there are legitimate candidates for governor and U.S. Senate and an empty U.S. House seat for the first time in 30 years, which has credible candidates.

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Linda Haney is the democratic nominee for Knox County Mayor. She is pictured inside the Knox County Democratic Party headquarters on Friday, May 18, 2018.(Photo: Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel )

"We need to motivate people that midterms are more important than presidential elections, they really are … we focus too much on that. (Local people) make the rules and laws.”

Brooks said there is precedent for Democrat mayors (or county executives as they were once titled). He points to former Democrat county executive, Tommy Schumpert, the man who held the top post in the county before Mayor Mike Ragsdale.

“It’s not like it hasn’t happened so we just got to keep plugging away and doing the best we can,” he said.

‘Polar opposites’

Haney chuckles at the suggestion that she and her former WWE opponent, Jacobs, couldn’t be any more different, especially in size.

For her part though, Haney points to two things the candidates have in common: neither has run for public office before and neither are originally from Knox County. (However, Haney has lived in Knox County for 25 years.)

“That’s it,” she said.

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Glenn Jacobs works the room during his election watch party on Tuesday, May 1, 2018. (Photo: Saul Young/News Sentinel)

“He’s really more extreme in the libertarian stream (with) the thought that government really isn’t necessary. I beg to differ with him,” she said. “Government needs to be run properly. Government is not a business. What it does is take the resources of the citizens and they hire us to be responsible to use them in their best interests and work for them.”

“I hate tax increases,” Brooks said. “But I think the county does have some real needs and I think the school system has real needs with providing better compensation for teachers and front line employees and the money’s just not there.”

Haney said she will continue to focus on the issues, not their differences.

“Politics is local. That’s a cliché, but it really, really is,” she said. “And what the mayor of Knox County, the mayor of Knoxville, what our council and commission do really affects me and everybody who lives here. So we have to focus on the issues that affect us.”

Hoping to copy

Haney said last fall’s Knoxville City Council election that saw four women elected has been encouraging to her as she campaigns.

Yes, she said, she knows the city and county are miles apart politically in some ways, but said women can lead; the council, and Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero, have proven that.

“I think the day of (people thinking) women cannot be leaders is long gone,” she said. “I’m not going backwards I’m going forward. Women can make mistakes just as well as men can, but we do think differently, we do have a different approach on issues and we’re very, very capable of being leaders.”